South East Asia on a Hamstring – January 26

Pagandaran – January 26, 2000

Joanne, Andy and I went to the village market in the morning. It was really a vegetable and fruit market and we covered it pretty quickly. Andy then took us to the Pagandaran health clinic, a sad rundown little place with ancient, sagging stained mattresses. It made me feel really queasy. It made Joanne start scheming about ways that she could generate financial support for the clinic.

The rest of our group was resting up in the air-conditioning and ordering room service. Joanne and I took a guided afternoon excursion into the nearby jungle.

The first thing we saw was a lot of monkeys. Our guide had brought monkey snacks and he let us feed them. He demonstrated how to look at a monkey so that it bares its teeth back at you. I figure that I must’ve stared that way at the cheeky monkey back in Ubud. He then demonstrated how you can show your butt to the monkeys and they all go running away.

We ran into an Indonesian film crew at the top of the jungle trail. They’d been filming there for months. It was a martial-arts tv show and all the stars were in semi-martial arts/renaissance/Aladdin wear. One of them knew Joanne and came by for a chat.

On we went to the porcupine cave. A clever entrepreneur at the entrance loaned us a flashlight for a small fee and we bent over and walked into the darkness. Our guide made porcupine calling noises, sort of kissing sounds, and the porcupines came out for snacks. They looked really mysterious in the low light and were fairly tame.

Next our guide went out and made deer calling sounds. We saw big deer, little deer, mouse deer, plenty more monkeys and ultimately, he used chicken on a string to fish a scorpion out of the ground.

The guide flattened out the scorpion and invited us to touch it. We did, but Joanne refused to put it in her mouth as most leaders apparently have at some point. The guide didn’t even ask me. There was no way in hell I would’ve done that.

I went for dinner with Andy, leaving Joanne behind to answer the Los Angeles guy’s questions about where I was. I was really beginning to wonder now… why was he being so insistent? Could I have made an impression or was he a stalker or did he want an autographed comic for his nephew or something? It was a bit mystifying.

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